Retail Industry News
Fresh Market IPO signals retail growth spot
Thursday, 06, May 2010
While most U.S. food retailers grapple with the weak economy and wage discount battles with competitors, at least one grocer is betting that more and more consumers are willing to trade up.The Fresh Market Inc., a Greensboro, N.C.-based specialty food retailer, plans to raise as much as $345 million in an initial public share offering, the company said in a May 3 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Fresh Market strives to create a “neighborhood grocer” atmosphere offering “fresh, carefully-selected, high-quality food products focused on perishable categories,” the company said in the filing.Store offerings include “hand-trimmed steaks… aged for tenderness” and hand-stacked, “colorfully displayed” fresh produce, the filing said. Many Fresh Market meat and produce items, including Red Delicious apples and fresh ground beef, are priced at premiums to conventional supermarkets “commensurate with the product’s higher quality.”
